A clinical psychologist explains how Ayn Rand seduced young minds and helped turn the US into a self

[applegrove]

by Bruch E. Levine at Alternet, Raw Story

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/a-clinical-psychologist-explains-how-ayn-rand-seduced-young-minds-and-helped-turn-the-us-into-a-selfish-nation/

"SNIP...............


To wow her young admirers, Rand would often tell a story of how a smart-aleck book salesman had once challenged her to explain her philosophy while standing on one leg. She replied: “Metaphysics—objective reality. Epistemology—reason. Ethics—self-interest. Politics—capitalism.” How did that philosophy capture young minds?

Metaphysics—objective reality. Rand offered a narcotic for confused young people: complete certainty and a relief from their anxiety. Rand believed that an “objective reality” existed, and she knew exactly what that objective reality was. It included skyscrapers, industries, railroads, and ideas—at least her ideas. Rand’s objective reality did not include anxiety or sadness. Nor did it include much humor, at least the kind where one pokes fun at oneself. Rand assured her Collective that objective reality did not include Beethoven’s, Rembrandt’s, and Shakespeare’s realities—they were too gloomy and too tragic, basically buzzkillers. Rand preferred Mickey Spillane and, towards the end of her life, “Charlie’s Angels.”

Epistemology—reason. Rand’s kind of reason was a “cool-tool” to control the universe. Rand demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not qualify as “reason,” why then did she regularly attempt it with her Collective? Also oddly, while Rand mocked dark moods and despair, her “reasoning” directed that Collective members should admire Dostoyevsky, whose novels are filled with dark moods and despair. A demagogue, in addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent, sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding out clear-thinking young people from the flock.

Ethics—self-interest. For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, Christian missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? Her champions, Nathaniel Branden still among them, feel that Rand’s view of “self-interest” has been horribly misrepresented. For them, self-interest is her hero architect Howard Roark turning down a commission because he couldn’t do it exactly his way. Some of Rand’s novel heroes did have integrity, however, for Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true integrity and childish vanity. Rand’s integrity was her vanity, and it consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her always being right. To equate one’s selfishness, vanity, and egotism with one’s integrity liberates young people from the struggle to distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.


.................SNIP"

[athena]

1. I had a friend transformed by reading Ayn Rand.

She suddenly went from an intelligent, reasonable, and curious young woman to someone who used others for her own needs. Her friends eventually noticed that they were being used and stopped hanging out with her. Although I didn't think I was being used, I found that she had grown cold and uninteresting, and soon we parted ways.

I often wonder if she's still a Randian or if she has grown to realize that selfishness does not bring happiness and that it is not what has historically motivated humanity to achieve great things.

[NCDem777]

2. For many Randians of my generation it's not even psychological

Speaking as an ex-Randian, a fairly decent number of Ayn Rand devotees come from shit tier public schools.

When your first major experience with government includes things like letting bullies roam the hall (and threatening to expel you if you defend yourself even if the security cameras have irrefutable proof that you were the victim), acting like they care about safety while at the same time letting known members of Crips, MS13, Skinheads, etc roam the halls and terrorize the students that want to learn, and in my case, violate my IEP by taking me out of an adapted gym class for physically disabled kids to place me in a new experimental math class that was essentially a ploy to make the principal look good, Ayn Rand's message of "fuck all things government" can actually seem reasonable.

On a similar note, if your only experience with poor people are those kids who only come to school to dismantle it and then later complain that they can't get a job because they dropped out of school at the first opportunity so they could spend their days gangbanging and drug dealing, the whole "poor people are parasites" suddenly seems like a good argument.

[wildeyed]

3. I read Atlas Shrugged as a teenager.

I just remember thinking it was waaaaay too long.